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Ask HN: How do you manage your obsession

12 points by kuasha ↗ HN
After few years of reading more than a few articles on startups and more than hundred books (audible + kindle only) it is hard not to think about it good part of the waking time and harder not to talk about it at all. But your friends do not quite understand what you are talking. Specially when your family and friends think that, you have a job that pays, a nice family (this is true) and a "hobby" of reading about startups but they are very annoyed when you sometimes (they view as almost always) skip the weekend funs for doing some boring stuff staring at the monitor. Some will say, some will be nice not to say, but still will think about almost certainly. Worse part is there is no way to argue any of these since you have nothing tangible in your hand other than few stories X lines of code or a working beta where users grow not in millions, not even in thousands but just a few every week.

7 comments

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jamielee
Sounds like you have a great life. I would not take it for granted.

I think that you have to be careful about the start-up dream stories. They are like chocolate cake. Eating it makes you feel good, and you want to eat a lot of it, but it is not good for your long-term health or happiness. Time spent reading a start-up book or story is time you will never get back.

If you are serious about starting a start-up, you have to be working tirelessly on the product. This is what I have gathered from watching start-up school videos. It seems that people who are successful focus on building the product (and catering to their user base) for much of their waking hours.

I am being sort of a hypocrite though, because I peruse Hacker News almost daily! Haha, but I do spend a good amount of time trying to build a product, too. I feel less guilty about reading so much by taking action to try and counteract the lost time. At least, it works that way in my mind.

kuasha
Thanks for your thoughts. Its not the glorious part that is interesting- but to create something that helps people. Right now I am working on a hardware device that will make communication easy specially for older and challenged people. But if it works it should crate more than a few jobs (one of which can be mine).
jamielee
That sounds heart-warming! Do you have a blog or something that you track your progress with? I understand that hardware is difficult because you have to keep a lot of things secret. I am pretty curious now. Do you live in the states? There are lots of accelerators other than YCombinator (if you have not applied there yet).
kuasha
I have not shared anything on blog yet. The idea is actually very simple - not much thing to hide - but it is not easy to implement without at least basic knowledge in telecom and electronics. Here are the ideas- A video phone system attached to a TV + webcam that can be operated with only a remote control. As a side effect we have Netflix, Hulu-Plus, youtube etc. on it for free. I use arduino for remote control part using a infra-red sensor and it is connected to a beagle bone black. BBB controls the communication. I use SIP for signaling. It will to be sub 40$ I guess when custom built and manufactured as a single device. A media capable home phone - nothing new or special but hopefully easier to use than existing ones. Still need to answer why someone use it instead of Skype. I am mostly depending on its design rather than cutting edge technology.

All the parts work separately but need to make a solid device that does not fail. I have talked to my friends in here, Europe, Australia and Asia- it works (https://www.facebook.com/w3voice has some video call photo) - they don't have the device yet- but my system works from browser with webrtc as well (no plugin required for firefox and chrome). The ssl certificate has expired (was using a 3 month trial) so can not share the site now. But prototype to product seems harder than I thought while doing weekends only. I even needed to buy a wooden box for this. This is frustrating because I am sure I will need to change things before people finds it interesting. So, need to build one as soon as possible. As it is now it may be actually a bad idea.

And yes, I live in Seattle area in Washington (west one). I did not think YC or anyone would be interested to find a solo guy working from living room with probably a bad idea in the first place (I have not applied to any yet- including YC). I was planning to complete it in a few months and go for them. I got few people interested to buy, so will have some customers as well.

JSeymourATL
It's important to seek-out like minded people, especially those that have successfully a chartered a similar path. As for competing time demands with family/friends. We all have that. Eliminating time wasters like TV & web surfing can be huge.
kuasha
Like minded people - yes- that would help. Sometimes it helps when people thinks about computer startup process instead of shoes when you use the word "boot".